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Recently I've become super fascinated with the Joplin tornado, mainly figuring out why so many people died, and in my head I've come to the conclusion, that there simply will never, ever be another tornado like the 2011 Joplin tornado. It was unfortunately the perfect scenario to have over 150 deaths, even in an era where the warning system had grown so much in the past 20+ years leading up to Joplin.
These were the factors that led to the amount of deaths that Joplin had:
- You had a tornado that went from nothing, to wedge in legit less than 10 seconds, so it wasted no time in causing devastating damage. Not to mention, it was also obscured in rain, so nobody could see it.
- Joplin was one of the leading cities in the US in Tornado Warning false alarms leading up to 2011, so the "cry wolf" mentality was at an all time high.
- There had already been a Tornado Warning an hour earlier that was a false alarm.
- It was one of the busiest times in the afternoon where people were coming home from graduation ceremonies, people were shopping and altogether just out and about.
- The tornado hit through the most populated areas of the city.
All these combined (and I'm sure more factors), and you have a recipe for deaths of over 150+. Some might argue, that it's surprising that there weren't more.
I also came across one of the most eerie tornado videos from Joplin in my time of looking more into this event.
There will never, ever be another tornado like Joplin 2011.
